Who says they aren’t interested? Did you do a survey or are you thinking out loud? If they hand it out as a prize or an award that doesn’t mean it’s a negative recommendation. No sane blogger would pass on stuff that sucks to his readers.

Some bloggers received an N95 to test out, including me. I never switched SIMs, I took it to Vegas and used the camera and the wifi, and I used the GPS when I was in Brussels. Due to the fact it had to be returned within 3 weeks, I didn’t think it was worth it to merge all my phone data and email settings and so on. And I think others will have reacted in the same way. 3 weeks is a little bit too short to fully explore such a device, but it does give you an idea of what you can expect and how fast it works. The reason why I agreed to this is pretty simple. It’s portable, it’s cool and it doesn’t require me to change habits.

Where speech recognition needs to be trained for days and adjusted, wants me to stop typing and start talking, the N95 can just be picked up and used. Far less effort, far less time to adapt, much more ease-of-use. Two totally different products you can’t really compare. Again, just my two cents.

Pieter

The same bloggers have all the time to test the Nokia N95 en they have to give that one back after testing.

Our Cheese side-action does what it does: for a limited budget it attracts some attention from bloggers and gets some viewers on YouTube and GarageTV.

“I read a lot of blogposts where bloggers asked who wanted to test this gift, because they didn’t had the time themselves.”

So, they talk about the product and ask their peers to test it out. What’s not to like? The more people who know about it the merrier. I think that’s a good accomplishment. Don’t you?

I saw many post about the approach of handing out software to bloggers, not about the product. And how many positive/negative recommendations came out of this? Few.

Yes they had some buzz and links which is nice. They got noticed. But is was a one time action and there was few interaction.

I read a lot of blogposts where bloggers asked who wanted to test this gift, because they didn’t had the time themselves.

My package is somewhere in the closet, never even opened. The Microsoft Vista gift I use though.

Pieter

That’s what I mean with a smoother angle of approach.

I don’t agree. Sponsoring a blog dinner or barcamp addresses bloggers. Sponsoring bloggers to write or film something, addresses the readers of those blogs. Not all blog readers are bloggers themselves, and it is a grave error to confuse between bloggers and blog readers.

I wasn’t aware you had another blog where discussions like these would more appropriate. I’ll keep it in mind.

Like I said in my comment, I wanted some more enlightenment about the laptop case and not the original matter. Admittedly that was maybe too off topic, but thanks anyway for providing me with the background information I missed out on. It didn’t change my mind, but still.

Furthermore, I don’t want to fire up another Microsoft discussion. Please no. I grew up with Microsoft products and they happily fulfil my every need so I wouldn’t know why. Since apparently I haven’t been general enough (don’t really care about which two companies are involved), I would like to elaborate on that a bit more, but as you said, this might not be the place.

Allow me to bring it up on micromiel.com one of these days. See you there!

PS: Quickly for the record: my words are my own, and I speak for myself. I live in Australia for the moment and so I say what I say independently, without being tied to any (former) employer. I wouldn’t want to give that impression.

Also to Miel: “The laptops are handed out to some bloggers in Europe. ”

It’s not in Europe, but in EU + Israel (which is not delivered, according to your posts in MM blog. People in EU like to say in Europa and that means only EU. (Es tut mir wirklich leid or I’m sorry but truth hurts. )

–
Have a nice day people from Vienna and one bosnian’s student here

Dieter from Asfaltkonijn is still a student and is webmastering on one of our sites. Jobstudent, like we say in Belgium. Copy paste stuff and all. He has done some seeding for campaigns. Good work though.

What he writes in his linkedIn profile is to impress future employers. We allow him. :) How where you as a kid?

regards
Pieter

“If you are an OS maker, you have enough resources to have your product well tested against every thinkable scenario. By benchmark-happy, IT literate test analysts, for instance. I believe that’s the standard way to ensure quality before releasing it. I can’t see how any blogger, as keen as he/she might be to test new things, could replace that.”

We did have benchmark-happy and IT literate test analysts throwing themselves on Windows Vista, Office 2007 and the Live services already. That’s what the beta phase is for. Bloggers are just another audience on which we focus and they do tend to make rather weird combinations of tools and apps, which is why we selected some.

“Like using a test public, understandable. Happens for almost every product I guess. But why then send out laptops to renowned bloggers? Why not invite people to beta-test as usual? Or even throw a test-fest dinner/barcamp? Knowing that…”

We have invited people to beta-test, the beta-tests were public, as usual. We threw test-fest dinners (Pieter was even part of at least one in Diegem, Brussels, when Phil Holden came to talk about new Windows Live products, we had Vista demo laptops out where the invitees could play with the OS). We do go to barcamps, in fact we were on the last one with a Messenger VOIP story in cooperation with i-merge. The reason why we choose some ‘renowned bloggers’ is obviously because they have a rather large audience. They might not write about it, but when somebody asks them something about one of the products offline on an event somewhere, they’ll speak their mind… Obviously when they’ve had a positive experience they’ll share that too, which is all the better for us. Providing them with the right equipment is simply because we can in this way ensure (more) that they can interact with the software in an optimal environment for a rather long time. As for Microsoft not needing that ‘more attention’, I meant that Vista and Office are difficult to compare with cheese when it comes to needing buzz. We’re in the news and wires every day, in contrast with Belgian cheese.

“Of course they weren’t. You can’t oblige someone to write something. Not without the threat of some unholy medieval practices or help of the Corleone family at least.”

Thank you for turning this discussion into a “Microsoft is evil” conversation. Hasn’t got anything to do with the subject anymore.

“But you could of course encourage them a bit. Gently persuade them by giving out incentives. It’s common practice used in all layers of society, so nothing to be ashamed of (or hypocrite about).”

Go read Tom Raftery’s posts about his experiences. Count the positive ones. Good luck. (www.tomrafteryit.net) –> We did learn a lot about the issues he encountered though. Incentives may not trigger positive posts, but we try to help out as good as we can. I’m not ashamed or hypocrite about it, which is why I openly blog about it on micromiel.com, from before it started right to when the project will end.

“What you cannot do without being accused of the latter, of course, is point your finger to another player, because you are all in the same game. What distincts you is the way you play it.

I prefer straightforward players, open about their game. Knowing advertising I wouldn’t go as far as calling them honest, but at least they earn more of my respect than the ones covertly trying to achieve the same goal. That makes me think of Don Vito again.”

I play it open and fair. (read the blog) – We don’t pick high-profile bloggers in all countries. Some of them are still students, others IT specialists and others devoted Mac users. I’m a bit disappointed you make it seem like Microsoft is the dark evil sneaky overlord here. I’ve never hidden anything, always played it out in the open.

… and about “straightforward players”… The guy who got hired by Duval with his popular blog, is actually working for them on a ‘freelance’ basis (although he is still studying) as a ‘buzz marketeer’. Where in the press release or where in his own blog post is that ‘disclaimed’? How about: “we gave the assignment to our part-time buzz marketer” or from Asfaltkonijn’s part “I work for Duval” instead of making it seem they randomly got contacted by accident. No they didn’t. They want it to seem like they did. Very straightforward. Truly.

Again, this blog isn’t meant to become a meeting point for pro and con Microsoft people. I’d rather take this sort of discussions to the other blog. But I’m not going to stand by and be accused of having a hidden agenda and not playing it straightforward. Not in this lifetime.

Your first comment left me a bit in the dark here. Allow me to ask for some additional enlightenment.

Judging from the note in Pieter Baert’s (Duval Guillaume) comment and your reaction to it, I have to assume Microsoft lended or gave out laptops with Vista and/or Office to European bloggers. I don’t know the full story so correct me if I’m wrong, but given that fact I think you contradict yourself on a few issues.

“The laptops are handed out to some bloggers in Europe to have them being tested by people who tend to install, uninstall and reinstall upcoming software and switch a lot between multiple applications (bloggers are keen on trying out new things)”

If you are an OS maker, you have enough resources to have your product well tested against every thinkable scenario. By benchmark-happy, IT literate test analysts, for instance. I believe that’s the standard way to ensure quality before releasing it. I can’t see how any blogger, as keen as he/she might be to test new things, could replace that.

“We just need their expertise to see where we can possibly tweak the OS to make things better.”

Like using a test public, understandable. Happens for almost every product I guess. But why then send out laptops to renowned bloggers? Why not invite people to beta-test as usual? Or even throw a test-fest dinner/barcamp? Knowing that…

“Microsoft doesn’t actually need that more attention”

… it can neither be because Microsoft would like to sugar-coat the blogger’s opinion, fabricate positive third party reviews and create a buzz in the blogosphere (pardon my French), can it? On the contrary:

“The bloggers were free to write about it, but not at all obliged.”

Of course they weren’t. You can’t oblige someone to write something. Not without the threat of some unholy medieval practices or help of the Corleone family at least.

But you could of course encourage them a bit. Gently persuade them by giving out incentives. It’s common practice used in all layers of society, so nothing to be ashamed of (or hypocrite about).

What you cannot do without being accused of the latter, of course, is point your finger to another player, because you are all in the same game. What distincts you is the way you play it.

I prefer straightforward players, open about their game. Knowing advertising I wouldn’t go as far as calling them honest, but at least they earn more of my respect than the ones covertly trying to achieve the same goal. That makes me think of Don Vito again.

We cannot do anything about it. Maybe it just proves that blogging does work after all.

Cheng Cheng
Get the Free Attraction Acceleration Report by Bob Proctor now!!!
visualizationexercise.com/rights

I will continue to comment under the company name Duval Guillaume, since I speak for the agency and sign below with my personal name.

Kind regards
Pieter Baert

Pieter (dot) Baert (at) duvalguillaume (dot) com

I don’t consider it a good marketing practice to comment on a blog, using a collective company name without identifying the person writing the comment.

Blogging, “conversations”, are about people. I miss the personal touch when someone identifies himself/herself as a company without specifying his/her personal name. Even Belgian civil servants have to sign letters with their own name nowadays, they cannot hide any longer behind their collective identity…

It boggles my mind that a communication agency is communicating in a way that ignores the personal aspect of internet communications.

Of course I know who wrote that comment, because I use Twitter… ;-)

Yes it is, their stuff is cheesy.

(sorry, open goal)

I played the game, thought it was well executed.